Online Support Groups: Enhancing the User Experience with Cyber-Psychological Theory

Most of us will be familiar with the well-known expression “a problem shared is a problem halved.” Conventional wisdom at least then would seem to suggest that there are distinct psychological benefits associated with unburdening your problems onto others. Perhaps there is something cathartic about getting a few things off your chest. Perhaps discussing your problems with others allows you to gain new insights from someone else’s perspective or maybe there is just some comfort in simply knowing that others are there for you when you need them. Whatever the case, no matter how resilient you might think you are, there comes a time in all of our lives when (to quote a very famous song) “we all need somebody to lean on” (Withers, 1972)